I could tell you that the anxiety-ridden hunt for human-like androidsin this book represents the queasy quest for authenticity of the late1960s. I could tell you that the "othering" of the androids, who arehunted and killed as threats to society, reflectsa critique of the Vietnam War from the perspectiveof Berkeley, California—where the author lived in1968, when Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?was published. I could even tell you that Philip K.Dick wrote this novel for the money, anticipatingthe sweet movie deal that would turn his book intoBlade Runner.

I could tell you this, and many other impressivethings about Mr. Dick and his most famous story.But I'm not sure whether any of them would be true.I've seen this book discussed in works of philosophyand, at the opposite end of the spectrum, celebratedas a high point of 1960s campy escapist entertain-ment. For some, it is the harbinger of cyberpunk,for others it anticipates Jean Baudrillard's Simulacraand Simulation. Or perhaps Dick even inspiredLionel Trilling's Norton lectures—suspiciouslywritten almost at the same time as the appearanceof Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?—and later published under the intriguing titleSincerity and Authenticity.

Who can say? Did anyone think to administer a Voigt-KampfEmpathy Test—that ultimate measure of sincerity and authenticity—to Professor Trilling?

Alas, none of these grandiose claims has, I fear, much bearing on whatPhilip K. Dick actually put into this book. We need to remind ourselvesthat our esteemed author wrote his novel in a state of personal crisis,and any obsessions he revealed about sincerity and authenticitywere personal ones, anxieties that Dick lived through each day,and didn't need to find described in a book of philosophy or aclassroom lecture. The power and vibrancy of Dick’s work from thisperiod has little to do with the concepts at play (although many conceptsare at play), but derives from their immediacy, their felt reality no matterhow unreal the unfolding plots.

Of course, all of the high-flung praise came after the fact. AfterSignet released a cheap paperback edition of Do Androids Dreamof Electric Sheep? in 1971, a full 11 years passed before Ballentinemade the novel available again, although it was now dubbed BladeRunner. Even at this stage, the book was hardly considered a literaryclassic; rather part of the promotional efforts behind a big budget movie.The rehabilitation of the novel as novel (not a movie tie-in) and itsemergence as a classic literary text came only gradually, over aperiod of decades. Dick is now considered a seminal figure of the1960s, but only with the benefit of hindsight.

Few writers experienced more vividly the long, strange trip of the1960s than Philip K. Dick. Finding a suitable natural habitat inBerkeley, the epicenter of the zeitgeist, he experienced alteredstates of consciousness, some fueled by drugs others of his owncreation. Dr. Timothy Leary, the high priest of LSD, even made afan phone call to Dick in 1969, but the sci-fi author wasn't especiallyloyal to acid. He was also familiar with the effects of mescaline,pot, lithium, valium, stelazine, dexamyl, sodium pentothal and PCPas well other active agents that came without brand labels or listsof ingredients, but could be procured in the neighborhood.

Then there were dreams and visions. Around the time he was writingDo Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Dick "was working all night,"according to his wife of the period Nancy Hackett (the fourth of fivespouses), "and when he came to bed he was talking like a differentperson. He’d had some kind of experience while writing and thoughthe was someone else or somewhere else."

This quest for clarifying the basic issues of identity and realityemerged as the central theme in novel he was writing. The protagonistRick Deckard (even the name resonates with the same consonantsas the author's) must track a group of escaped androids and retire—or kill, depending on your perspective—these fugitives from justice.The latest generation of androids, the Nexus-6, are indistinguishablefrom human beings, which makes their identification and eliminationchallenging. Even the androids themselves might not be aware oftheir true identity, perhaps believing that they are human beings.The authorities, however, have developed a diagnostic tool, theVoigt-Kampf Empathy Test, which can distinguish between realand ersatz homo sapiens. So far, no android has been able topass the test.

The plot proceeds from this point along the familiar lines of thepolice procedural, with the investigator tracking down the guiltyand meting out appropriate 'justice'. But the key milestones thestory are almost dwarfed by the eerie, unsettling atmospherics,and subplots. The specifics of Deckard’s tense domestic life mightseem like throwaway details. And the same goes for he and hiswife's desire to own a real pet animal—which is thwarted becauseof the prohibitive cost. After Deckard's real sheep died from tetanushe was forced to settle for an electric one. These, and other elementscasually introduced into the narrative augment the pervasive sense ofdread that can be felt viscerally by the reader of this work.

Despite the unreal sense of techno noir that permeates these pages,science is catching up with Dick's outlandish premise. The question ofwhether machines can attain to the status of person-hood, and how thatleap can be tested and verified, might once have been issue left for philosophers or, occasionally sci-fi writers. But this is increasinglya matter for empirical testing and, perhaps soon enough, regulationand litigation. When the Supreme Court eventually rules on androidrights, I fully expect that Dick's novel will be cited in decisions handeddown from the bench.

Even so, the essence of this book will always remain beyond therealm of science, no matter how broadly defined. With Dick’s workof this period, there is always the story at hand (in this instance, ahunt for androids), and the larger story that is always knocking atthe door. That larger story can be summarized in five words: nothingis what it seems. This is a concept that tends to resist novelization,can never be described concretely, because it is the opposite of theconcrete. Yet give credit to Dick for tackling it again and again, andliving up to its conceptual demands. Indeed, what image does a betterjob of conveying unreality than that of an android's dream? There,where the unreal meets the even more unreal, you find the intersectionat which Philip K. Dick repeatedly asserted his squatter’s rights. He ownsthis type of story…and for the worst possible reason: he was forced tolive it.

Ted Gioia writes about music, literature and pop culture. His next book,a history of love songs, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press.